Bay City Could Have Been Buick Headquarters, Durant Biographer Says
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Billy Durant Book To Be Re-Issued by University of Michigan Press.
In the early 1900s, General Motors founder William C. "Billy" Durant eyed Bay City as the center for manufacturing the Buick motor car.
So writes Flint author Lawrence R. Gustin (Right, Durant biographer, a Flint native.), whose 1973 biography of Durant is being re-issued by the University of Michigan Press.
"He said he offered to move Buick to Bay City if the town could raise $100,000," Mr. Gustin wrote, quoting George H. Maines, public relations man and son of Charles T. Maines, Flint real estate developer.
Bay City was attractive to the automotive tycoon because of its "handy port on Lake Huron," according to the author.
"The money wasn't raised," the book states, commenting: "The proposal may have been only a feint anyway, to shock Flint's financial leaders into action. If it was, it worked. The four Flint banks each pledged $20,000 through subscriptions by their directors, for which they would get a 25 percent bonus of Buick stock."
The Flint leaders struck a deal: "Durant would have to discontinue his operations in Jackson and move the whole Buick business back to Flint."
Local historians theorized that Bay City may not have wanted Buick because such a large enterprise would have raised wages, caused labor shortages and the need to import labor. Longstanding rumors were that Ford also was interested in Bay City and ran into the same roadblock. The raising of $100,000 would not have been a major issue since there was vast wealth from the lumbering days here and in 1927 Bay City put up about $1 million, outbidding Cleveland to bring the Brown Hoisting Company here to merge with the Industrial Works, creating Industrial Brown Hoist.
Saginaw gets mention because in the first two years of GM's existence the budding corporate giant bought the Marquette Motor Company and the Ranier Motor Company, both of Saginaw, along with Buick, Olds, Cadillac, Oakland (Pontiac), Champion Ignition (AC Sparkplug) and many other firms.
Durant didn't need cash, the author reports, since he exchanged stock in the new corporation for the properties. Among other firms Durant acquired this way were the National Cycle Company and National Motor Truck Company, of Bay City. Those firms were taken over by the Chevrolet Motor Company in 1916 and merged with GM in 1918, with Henry B. Smith as president. The local owners reportedly sued to receive cash but were forced by the Michigan Supreme Court to take GM stock, that eventually became much more valuable than the cash.
The book jacket touts the book as "A new edition of the classic book on the flamboyant genius who helped lead America into the automobile age" and asks the question: "How did Billy Durant come to exercise so broad an influence in the emerging auto industry? And why has he been virtually forgotten for decades?"
The U-M Press states that Gustin turned to Durant's widow, who provided a wealth of previously unpublished material in the form of autobiographical notes, letters, and Durant's personal papers. In addition, Gustin interviewed Durant's widow, two of his personal secretaries, and others who had known and worked with the man who created General Motors.
Mr. Gustin, 70, a 1959 graduate of the School of Journalism at Michigan State University, was a writer/editor for 23 years at The Flint Journal, covering sports and the auto industry.
In 1973 he wrote the Billy Durant biography, which won the McKean Memorial Cup for historical research from the Antique Automobile Club of America. He produced The Flint Journal Centennial Picture History of Flint in three editions starting in 1976 and co-authored the award-winning "The Buick: A Complete History" in 1980.
He covered the Apollo 11 mission that put the first man on the moon in 1969, the inauguration of President Jimmy Carter and the Republican National Convention that nominated Ronald Reagan as its Presidential candidate in 1980.
He also worked as assistant public relations director of the Buick Division of General Motors Corp. In 1999 he received a distinguished service award from the Automotive Hall of Fame.
In 2006, Mr. Gustin authored another award-winning book, the first biography of the founder of the Buick automobile, "David Buick's Marvelous Motor Car." He and his wife Rose Mary live in Oakland County and have two sons and five grandchildren.###
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